


Exit, pursued by a bear

by Ponderosa



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Black Male Character, Canon Character of Color, First Time, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prostitution, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 20:58:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1616870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the prostitute they're soliciting together asks an unexpected question, Aramis offers a compromise, and Porthos demands a lively show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit, pursued by a bear

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a giant thank you to the partner in crime, autoschediastic, for invaluable help and the addition of choice lines.

It's not the first time they've shared a woman. Often it's been one of them who’s taken his pleasure before the other, waiting with the unfortunate aching in his breeches until the turn came. Several times now they've enjoyed women more accommodating, who have looked between them and not bothered to brand them libertines with the cluck of a tongue before pulling them into her bedchambers--or onto a convenient and sturdy table. No matter the circumstance, it’s always been twice the coin or twice the promises left in parting and blissful smiles all around.

“First time I’ve gotten to use this room,” Beatrice says.

Aramis follows Porthos in glancing around at the elaborate decor. It’s a far cry from the palace, but fine fabrics do a lot to obscure the plainness of the furnishings. And the bed-- The bed is _very_ large. “Best in the house and looks it,” Porthos remarks in his typical plainspoken way. He leaves his pistol on a low settee and unbuckles his belt to unburden himself of his sword as well. Lingering dust from the ride filters into the air.

“He means you.” Aramis catches Beatrice’s hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. She colors beautifully as she withdraws, playing coy. It gets his blood up. After removing his hat, he runs a hand through his hair to ensure he looks composed. “Though the room is indeed well appointed.”

“Will you be having both holes at once?" Beatrice asks, bold as can be though she keeps her knees together as she settles amidst a field of pillows. Aramis puts a hand to his chest in preparation of answering when she purses her lips and looks between them questioningly. "Or is only the one of you fond of women?”

This is a new and startling question. It digs like a fishhook in the space between Aramis's ribs. Beneath his palm, his heart skips a beat. They are not boys to be going at one another when a hand will not do. 

"What do you think, Porthos? Are you tired of our usual games?" Aramis turns towards Porthos as he divests himself of his own weapons and cloak. While it’s absurd to think that the either of them would ever give up courting a lady’s charms, neither are they unfamiliar with enjoying the sound of one another's pleasure. He slides an arm across Porthos's shoulders and glibly asks, "Would you rather keep the woman in the middle or take a turn yourself?"

“Why do you presume I’m the one to get buggered?” Porthos takes the pistol from Aramis’s hand and tosses it to rest on the cushion near his own. “Surely you could take the middle. You’re the one handsome enough to wear her skirts and have a man’s head turn.”

That Porthos would decline the notion of Aramis having at him comes as little surprise, however the measuring gaze that follows is remarkably genuine in its ardour. It strikes Aramis with as much startlement as the prostitute presuming they were men of that persuasion. When last they were both to the hilt inside a woman and feeling the press and thrust of each other’s cocks through her warm flesh, had Porthos considered what it would be like to fuck into Aramis that way? A tingling starts up at the very tips of Aramis’s fingers. The idea is disarming, and he finds himself staring slack-mouthed at Porthos’s features as if he were assessing a stranger and not a man whose every scar and foul habit he knows as well as his own. When his thumb brushes lightly across Porthos’s shoulder and draws the corner of Porthos’s mouth upward, a peculiar thrill quickens in Aramis’s stomach.

“Gentlemen,” Beatrice says. She’s settled now against a high pile of pillows, her fingers curled around the gather of her skirts and her legs spread invitingly. “If you’d rather have me for longer, it won’t cost you much more….”

“A compromise,” Aramis suggests. He slips away from Porthos’s side and out of his coat, his gaze fixed on where Beatrice’s finger has moved to caress and spread herself for their enjoyment. With some reluctance, he shifts his attention to look her in the eye as he disrobes further. The queer sensation in his stomach travels up to knot behind his ribs as he finds the courage to suggest that perhaps it’s he who is ready for more than their usual games. “I’ll have you first, and if my friend cares to join us, then the middle is mine after all.”

“Fair enough,” says Porthos, jovial in tone and manner as he helps himself to a seat. “I’ll expect quite the show to make it worth my patience.”

Beatrice’s knees fall wide as Aramis settles near. Light catches her slickness and causes him to wonder if she finds the idea as surprisingly enticing as he himself. His bare flesh is no stranger to Porthos’s gaze, but still he exaggerates the stretch of muscles as he relieves himself of his shirt. The satisfaction of a fine day’s work and Porthos’s crude mouth on their journey here did much to stir him, and while he has no need for Beatrice’s clever fingers before she accommodates him, the curl of her hand about his prick is enjoyably firm. He bends to grace himself with a kiss as she guides his aim, her thighs as soft a cradle as the flesh that welcomes him.

“A decent entrance, I suppose,” Porthos says. 

Aramis pauses for but a heartbeat, even more keenly aware of the attention as he cups the ample flesh of her bottom and rocks into her. Paying for the privilege or not, he and Porthos both have always sought more than their own pleasure in coupling, and it’s no great difficulty to strive that much more to coax a breathy sigh out of Beatrice’s throat. Her arms wrap around him, breasts pillowing together for him to kiss as her hips cant upwards and let the next sweet stroke carry him deeper.

“Ooh!” she says, eyes widening before her tongue curves out to wet her lips. Porthos’s chair creaks as he shifts his weight--settling in and getting comfortable--while Beatrice sighs again. Regardless of if its purely playacting, it goads Aramis on to find the right angle that he need not use a hand to make her wriggle delightedly beneath him.

Porthos’s opinion on the matter differs. “Come on now, give her a tickle, even from here I can see she could be wetter,” he comments. A lively moan fills the room and he stamps a foot and scoffs. Aramis need not turn to look to know that Porthos has tipped his head back to regard them with a measure of skepticism. “I’m not certain you earned that one.”

“Darling,” Beatrice says, her head turning towards Porthos, “that one was for you.”

“How’d you know I’m the one that likes moaning?” Porthos asks. His lowered brow giving way to a devil’s smile is clear in his tone.

“Lucky guess.”

“Aramis, I like this one!”

“I find myself in full agreement,” Aramis murmurs against her cheek. She rewards him with a wonderfully tight clench of her cunt. This time it’s him who gives up a little wriggle and a moan.

“Now that,” Porthos says, accompanied by a small creaking of wood that prompts a quiver deep in Aramis’s belly, “that’s a familiar sound indeed.”

That Porthos pays so much attention during these trysts is no true surprise, but here and now it thrills as if it were. Only when Porthos clucks his tongue like a fishwife and mutters, “As shallow and swift as a rabbit,” does Aramis realise he’s let the sweetness of Beatrice’s embrace and the heavy gaze upon his back carry him away. He slows, but not before Porthos adds, “Drop the curtain already and you’ll owe the crowd an encore.”

Aramis scoffs at the notion while Beatrice fights a smile. The glance he tosses over his shoulder doesn’t quell the excitement threatening to turn his arms to water, and he finds himself turning swiftly back to her sweet face while Porthos’s silhouette lingers in his vision like a mirage. 

The next few minutes pass in a blur, and if he had been keenly aware of Porthos before, he is doubly--triply--so now, enough that a curse little more than a heavy exhale is enough to make him shiver in delight. When the noise of Porthos shedding clothes follows, it takes every ounce of control Aramis has to not turn and watch.

Still, before he knows it, Porthos has crossed the room and broad hands slide up Aramis’s back as bold as can be. His hips jerk involuntarily, and Beatrice makes a high sound, a giggle quick to follow as he stays buried in her to the hilt. She clenches tight around him just as Porthos’s warm hands travel down again, thumbs pressing along his spine, fingertips stretched and digging in to urge him to pull back. Aramis resists the guiding touch only briefly, finds his reward to be the scratch of blunt nails over the bones of his hips.

Porthos’s shadow feels like it carries weight, and Aramis’s body goes tense, the whole of him incapable of anticipating where Porthos’s hands will wander. His breath is in his throat as he slides deep into Beatrice again, and he breathes a quiet laugh at his own expense--he’d invited this, there’s no reason to regress into boyhood shyness now. Nosing a kiss at Beatrice’s jaw, he picks up the pace, fucking into her with a vigorous rhythm that earns him an appreciative sound from her and Porthos both.

“Now he’s got the spirit!” she cries, pulling a knee higher as her breath fans warm across Aramis’s cheek. Her gaze shifts past him, rouged mouth turned towards a smile that is certainly mirrored on Porthos’s face. “Touch him again, handsome.”

Porthos doesn’t need the encouragement; his hands already stroking low at Aramis’s back, settling just above the quick rock of Aramis’s hips before reaching past him to get a feel of Beatrice’s soft thighs. Tension comes rushing back into Aramis’s frame when Porthos’s hand slides between his legs. Callused fingertips explore the crease of his ass and the heat hidden there, a far cry different than Beatrice’s hands clutching at his bottom to pull him deeper.

“You sure about this,” Porthos asks. The scrape of rough knuckles drifts down the inside of Aramis’s leg and back up again until it’s the firm pad of a thumb pressed near to breach him. “The lady’s got a fine mouth.”

“Clever too,” she adds, and gives a saucy wink as she licks her lips.

“Wicked, I’d say,” Aramis ventures. His heart thunders in his chest, and he considers what it will feel like to have Porthos settling behind him, to have another man fill him so intimately. He wets his lips and his breath thins near to nothing as he spreads his knees wider to invite the push that Porthos teases at. “But I’ve made up my mind. Life is fleeting yet full of adventures, so I beg of you, Porthos, treat me well.”

“Oh, I like where this is going,” Beatrice says. She pecks Aramis on the cheek and shifts beneath him, her legs holding tight as she stretches out to grab a stoppered bottle sitting on her dressing table. She arches a thin brow and tosses the bottle to Porthos with a cheeky, “You’ll want this.”

Porthos catches it easily with his off-hand and gives it a little shake. Aramis twists around to watch as he pops the cork with his thumb and lifts the bottle to his nose. Whatever the scent, it must be pleasant, as Porthos nods approvingly before he winks at Beatrice and wets his fingers. Aramis can’t spare the sense to ask if it’s a special sort of oil, not when beneath him, Beatrice has pulled herself tight to him and her cunt clenches his prick with the strength of a hand. He groans to feel her go from soft to firm as he fucks her in hard, shallow thrusts.

“Go easy on the lady, Aramis,” Porthos chides.

Her laugh is a merry tinkling sound. “Go easy on me? Think it’s him you’ll have to go easy on, darling, he seems he’ll be done soon.”

“I beg your pardon, I am not--” Aramis begins, though his tongue falters when Porthos smacks him fondly on the flank. The shock and sting is chased swiftly away by the slip of oiled fingers. "Oh," he says, and finds himself suddenly torn between the need to stay buried in Beatrice's warm cunt and to raise his hips like an eager bitch for another swipe of slippery fingers. He had no idea it would feel so--

Porthos pushes a finger into him, and it’s a strange but not uncomfortable intrusion. The brush of fingertips was more delightful, but nothing matches the lightning that seizes his spine when Porthos asks, “D’you think we can get you wet as her?” With the way the heel of his hand presses near Aramis’s tailbone, Aramis knows Porthos is fingering him in the same manner as he would a woman.

“Feel good, love?” Beatrice asks. Her hands scratch down the whole of his back until she’s gripping the cheeks of his ass and spreading him open. “Keep breathing now and just give it a little push when he does. That’s it, darling, you’ll be taking his fine cock in no time at all.”

Continuing to breathe is no trouble--each inhale is swift and shallow, as if he can’t seem to fill his lungs enough. He loses any chance to respond in words when Porthos kisses his back, soft whiskers rubbing against bare skin. Aramis presses his face open-mouthed against Beatrice’s shoulder and Porthos’s quiet chuckling sinks into his skin along with each kiss, leaving a rippling wake likes pebbles cast into a pond. Soon enough there’s no stillness left inside him, no serenity to be found, and Beatrice’s encouragement whispered in his ear does nothing to ease the nervous thrill that has left his limbs trembling. He drops to his elbows, chest crushing against Beatrice’s, and the hard points of her nipples are a welcome distraction from the stretch that Porthos works him towards.

“Ah now, there we are,” Porthos says, and the push and slide of his fingers turns steady. The kisses cease, and Aramis protests only until he realizes that Porthos intends to slick him up anew. Left briefly empty, this time he’s prepared for the return of Porthos’s questing fingers, but it only makes his nervous excitement swell.

Aramis shudders as Porthos works him loose once again, and he drowns the sound he makes in a fresh kiss shared lazily with Beatrice. His thoughts are a scatter of leaves swirling in a tempest, and he worries that perhaps Beatrice was right and that he might spend himself before his body is open enough to take Porthos wholly.

“Might you hurry things along?” Aramis asks. He flashes Beatrice a smile before taking her mouth again, and she swallows his startled gasp when Porthos’s fingers drill deep, the strength behind his arm enough to force Aramis just that much deeper into Beatrice. She wriggles beneath him, and when Porthos slips away and the sound of his hasty stripping fills the room, she bucks her hips up and tells him this is the most fun she’s had in _ages_. “That makes the two of us, lovely,” he says, twisting around when Porthos returns.

“If I rush, I might hurt you,” Porthos says, kneeling now on the bed, lined up to work Aramis open with more than mere fingers. The thin window coverings soften the mid-morning sun and the light ripples across his skin like pale silk. His eye had never naturally pulled towards the brawn of men, but how is it that Aramis had stitched Porthos up so many times and yet never truly noticed how finely God had made him? “I’d rather not.”

“If only he’d grant me such kindnesses when sparring,” Aramis tells Beatrice under his breath. He grinds slowly against her, each tight circle of his hips making the press of Porthos’s cock less intimidating. “Though I give as good as I get.”

“You certainly do, handsome.”

Aramis smiles at her, eyes widening slightly as resistance gives way. Porthos’s big hands land on his body to cradle him like he’s fragile, and Aramis finds he very much enjoys that. His chest feels like it’s wrapped in chains and his head swims like he’s downed a few cups of wine. A dizzy rush leaves him reeling--Porthos is fucking into him, and his body races to learn how to handle size and sensation both. Surely by now he’s taken an inch--or perhaps three or four though it’s difficult to tell. What he wouldn’t give for a mirror, or a second set of eyes to make the moment that much more real in his mind.

He’d been too busy trying to relax when it was Porthos’s fingers in him that he gathers his wits and takes the time now to experiment. Does Porthos feel him tighten? Of course he would, Aramis realizes, and his own cock throbs to remember the last time he’d had a woman that way. The heat pooling in his groin flares like gunpowder and he wonders if the others sense the odd sort of delight that hits when Beatrice tightens around him and elicits a shudder out of he and Porthos both?

“Good?” Porthos asks.

“I’ll tell you as soon as you’ve gotten started,” Aramis says, though his glib tone is ruined by gasping breaths he cannot calm. If Porthos isn’t buried wholly in him yet, he will be soon enough and the thought alone draws a soft moan from Aramis’s throat.

It’s not only the way he’s stretched and swallowed, it’s the heat of Porthos’s body laid flush against him, the soft stroke of Beatrice’s hands along his arms. Aramis closes his eyes and savors every sensation, new and old alike. With the softness of Beatrice lined up below him, it’s as if he’s been submerged into a cocoon of carnal pleasure. This is well beyond the sort of party where he’s free to fuck a woman and glance around to watch others do the same. He is a man doomed; how could he ever settle for less after this? The scratch of Beatrice’s nails at his jaw makes him shiver even before the tickle of Porthos’s whiskers brush across the nape of his neck.

“It’s good,” Porthos decides for them both, and he’s never been more right.

They’ve had enough of the same women for Aramis to know that Porthos enjoys a lazy fucking, but also that he isn’t fond of pushing himself to the edge and losing himself in the smoldering stillness found there. That very end of the fuse is where Aramis burns now, each inch of his skin alive and his cock impossibly hard. For a breath he registers every tiny movement, each tender clench of Beatrice’s body, the dampness of Porthos’s kiss upon the faded scars that cross his shoulder. And in the next breath, Porthos is hauling him back--hauling him so fully unto Porthos’ cock that he slips free of Beatrice. She gives a little pout, but Aramis has neither the leverage to push forward again nor a thought beyond how very good it feels to have the faint kiss of the wet lips of her cunt at the tip of him while Porthos fucks into him deeper still.

He has nothing left when he hears Porthos moan and knows the pleasure is borne solely of the meeting of their flesh. The most Aramis can muster is a hurried apology as he comes messily all over the butterfly spread of Beatrice’s thighs.

If Porthos feels the seizing of his body, it doesn’t put a pause in his rhythm; he fucks into Aramis slow and hard, jolting Aramis’s entire body, and Beatrice--sweet Beatrice--she only pouts for a heartbeat before she pushes the hair from Aramis’s face and smiles at him.

“Did you want to move to the side and give your friend a turn?” she asks between kisses. Aramis finds he has no voice to answer with. Feebly, he returns her gentle kisses, until he’s turning his head to rest against the coolness of her palm.

“Given up already?” Porthos asks, and his hands on Aramis’s hips squeeze. “Now that your body is finally taking my cock without a struggle.”

Beatrice’s fingers comb into Aramis’s hair and a delightful, deviant feeling creeps through him at the notion that Porthos’s gaze is fixed upon where their bodies join. At the questioning arch of Beatrice’s thin brow, he blinks slowly, seeking to catch enough breath to speak even as his mouth pulls towards a wide smile. A shaky moan is all he can seem to manage, though if he could, he’d laugh. When was the last time he felt like this after such a hasty fuck?

Beatrice studies him a moment longer, and her look skews mischievous as her gaze abandons him, her bright eyes flicking past his shoulder to fix on Porthos. She continues to stroke a hand over his hair, and he feels very much like a contented cat as she answers for him, “Seems you’re doing such a marvellous job that your friend here is struck dumb. From the look on his pretty face though I’d wager he’d like a bit more.”

“Truly?” Porthos’s tone hints that he’d prefer to gauge Aramis’s expression himself. Hazily Aramis considers what that would be like: to lay spread beneath Porthos with his knees pushed as wide as Beatrice’s and the evidence of how much he apparently enjoyed being buggered hard and red between them. Would being upon his back lead to learning the taste of Porthos’s tongue? Or would he find some way to elicit that same delighted laugh that warmed him at gaming tables and on the road.

Porthos begins to withdraw, the slide of his buried prick from Aramis’s body seemingly endless, and Aramis manages to reach back to clutch at Porthos’s hip and whisper a rough, “I’ll never forgive you if you stop.”

“Harsh words,” Porthos says, and Aramis gets the distinct impression that he and Beatrice are sharing an entire conversation with their eyes alone. “The lady can hardly spend the whole day with us, and we’ll need a decent meal eventually.”

“Porthos, please! Now is not the time.”

“Very well, if you insist.”

“If he’s not, I am,” Beatrice chimes in, and Aramis does not need to turn to know that Porthos is grinning like a madman.

“As mademoiselle wishes,” Porthos says. He shifts, and pulls Aramis with him, not forcibly as he had before, but just enough to draw Aramis’s hips up an inch or so. Beatrice cuddles down beneath him and draws his face to hers again, sucking his tongue into her mouth in a thorough kiss.

As Porthos’s hand slides up his back, Aramis draws away from slow curl of Beatrice’s tongue. The touch follows alongside his spine, the greedy spread of fingers across his skin making him yearn for something which he can’t quite pin down. He rests heavily on his elbows, trying to muster the strength to be a more active participant, but Beatrice shushes him and closes her knees tight to his thighs. “Don’t fret,” she says. “Your man is doing fine.”

Aramis doesn’t have the time to marvel at how quickly heat blossoms in his chest because Porthos is fucking into him again--driving in deep and with purpose. He knows what this looks like; he’s seen Porthos fuck a woman like this dozens of times before, but now it’s him taking the whole of Porthos’s cock and treated to the warm curl of callused fingers over his shoulder. 

Beatrice squirms beneath him and he opens his eyes to find her panting softly. Her narrow wrist rests propped upon his shoulder and a subtle wet sound clues him in that Porthos has her fingers in his mouth.

“Your friend has a talented tongue,” she says, her heavy gaze sliding back to meet Aramis’s. She pulls her fingers free of Porthos’s mouth and takes them still wet between her own plush lips. The way the pink wetness of her mouth shows as she sucks her fingers clean makes Aramis ache to be hard again and have them on his prick. “Bet he’d even give me a fair run.”

“And here I thought I was the one with a clever tongue,” he replies somewhat lamely.

“You are.” Porthos’s mouth brushes against Aramis’s ear. Between the nuzzle against the curl of his hair, a teasing lick and Porthos’s hot breath that follows, Aramis mentally revises his objection. Perhaps later Porthos would even be willing to--

“Prove it,” Beatrice demands. 

Aramis merely arches a brow as he accepts the push of her fingers into his mouth. At his ear, Porthos groans and certainly this is the proof that Porthos has thought of using him like this before. He fucks hard into Aramis, presses a kiss into his skin that turns into the scrape of teeth and another, more desperate groan.

With a little playacting of his own, Aramis tests a moan. The sound is distorted by the push of Beatrice’s fingers on his tongue, yet it does the trick: the teeth in his shoulder dig in harder, a bright burst of hurt chased by euphoria as he feels Porthos’s muscles go rigid. Aramis makes a louder, more eager sound before closing his lips around Beatrice’s fingers and seeking to use his tongue against them to impress her. His core though remains gloriously relaxed, each push of his body against Beatrice’s is left to the mercy of Porthos’s thrusts.

“You’re a natural,” Beatrice says.

Aramis acknowledges the praise with a flick of his tongue, and then it’s all he can do to keep his teeth from closing on Beatrice’s fingers when Porthos seems hell bent at fucking them into the floor. She snatches her hand away prudently, and holds his face between her palms again. Her eyes are dark as midnight.

Porthos sits on his heels again, his hand smacking down to settle low on Aramis’s back as if he needs to be held in place. Though his brow is knitted tight and he’ll ache come this afternoon, Aramis has no intention of begging off the last of Porthos’s attention. If his body and his purse could take it, Aramis would stay like this until he was hard again. He tries to imagine what it would be like to come a second time now that he’s grown accustomed to the hard slap of Porthos’s hips against him, hasty now as if--

Oh. _Oh_ but the filthy thrill that sears him like a brand when he realizes that Porthos has no intention of pulling free and seeks to pump him full of seed.

He doesn’t need to guess when Porthos finds his end, not with the way that Porthos shudders to a halt and near crushes him to take Beatrice’s mouth in a victorious kiss. Pinned between them, Aramis feels every swelling twitch before the next shallow thrust proves more slippery than the last.

When Porthos leaves him and takes a portion of the bed unoccupied, Aramis rolls free to lay upon his back. Not yet hard again to fuck Beatrice properly, Aramis gives his thickened cock a lazy tug regardless. From the corner of his eye, he catches the smile betraying Porthos’s amusement.

“Well that was unexpected,” Aramis remarks. Beside him, Porthos chuckles quietly.

“I’ll say. A pair of musketeers at once, Madame said.... I was expecting to be sore for days!”

Her thighs wiped clean with her underskirts, Beatrice curls towards Aramis. He kisses her hair as she flings a leg over his to run the inside of her foot against Porthos’s shin. “How about you, big man?” she asks, giving Porthos a nudge with her toe.

“A minute or two and he’ll be able to give you an answer that goes beyond a syllable.”

“Well then, you don’t seem ready to leave, so let’s give your friend that minute or two.” She slides on top of Aramis, the puddle of her skirts obscuring where she rubs herself against his prick.

Aramis stretches his arms up, letting her use him just as selfishly as Porthos had. He aches in the most peculiar ways. “I could stay here forever.”

“Have you got the coin for it?”

“In his fondest dreams,” Porthos says. He shifts onto his side and with a gentle touch, he turns Aramis’s face to look at him. “We aren’t soldiers for the pay.”

Beatrice laughs as if she knows all too well how much soldiers earn and offers to entertain them for another hour at least. Aramis flashes her a rueful smile before he opens his mouth to suck lightly at Porthos’s thumb. How natural the gesture seems now, and how quickly his mind jumps to...other things. Beatrice’s thighs squeeze tight to his hips when Porthos pulls free his thumb, smearing Aramis’s lip wet. Aramis’s chest _aches_ with the sudden urge to kiss Porthos, and the way that Porthos’s eyes linger on him says the desire does not go unnoticed.

“What’s left of our meagre pay shall be spent on a drink or four,” Porthos says, dashing Aramis’s hopes that he might be persuaded to empty his purse and linger.

Beatrice reaches under her skirts to take him in hand. “Oh, but look who’s almost ready for a second performance.”

“I’m betting on it,” Porthos says, and he kisses Beatrice’s bare shoulder as he gets to his feet.

As Beatrice gets comfortable in the space Porthos has freed, Aramis sits up reluctantly. He dresses with no real haste, stopping halfway to fall back into Beatrice’s arms. Once there, however, he pauses, and turns to look questioningly at Porthos. “Betting on it? Do you mean to say that I-- That you might…?” he gestures between himself and Porthos.

“Well, you’re fond of telling me that I’m more agreeable when I’m not sober,” Porthos replies, and throws the rest of Aramis’s clothes towards him.

“It is true,” Aramis tells Beatrice, before giving her one last kiss. “You can talk the man into just about anything with enough strong drink in him.”

While normally the entertainment comes from provoking the Red Guard or games of dubious skill and even more dubious reward, Aramis realizes they’ve got all afternoon and all evening to see just how agreeable Porthos truly is.

He straps on his belt with a touch more haste. There’s a lot of inquiry to be done.


End file.
